No Paths (2026) - Bandstand..Begged Scandal..Board Yards

Bandstand

Here -

Where...top floor swearing is frequent..

Where...poor disguises are deliberate..

Where...slippery couples meet between sheets of hard fabric..

Where...derelict woods shelter shriveled worlds..

Where...door step begging is hasty and mindless..

is the place language comes to die.

Begged Scandal

Here -

Where...old parking is pavement rumour and small stone guttered..

Where...eclipsed views remain splintered with caged scissor precision..

Where...begged scandal is threatened..

Where...24 hour slowness is eyed suspiciously through boarded shop window..

Where...young shoes shoulder new passages on to industry dust covered machinery..

is the place language comes to die.

Board Yards

Here -

Where...recycled pathways stay unused and ignored..

Where...newly painted rail station gallery is haunted by plastic discipline..

Where...cryptic commands rattle through tight van streets into twisted board yards..

Where...key-ring novelty is blown into building machinery..

Where...boxed reminders become landfill..

is the place language comes to die.

No Paths (2026) - Adult Hands...Apple Canal...Back Pocket

Adult Hands

Here -

Where...illegal plastic high releases urgent stammered step..

Where...solitary private glass is windowed in shoddy single drinking room..

Where...stolen adult hands are nailed..

Where...blown factory wall rage by-passes toughened water..

Where...sponsored imagination drains away through rusting pipe..

is the place language comes to die.

Apple Canal  

Here -

 

Where...surface anger is scheduled for evening cycle ride..

Where...delivery boxed vandalism is slow hand clapped on coin free street corner..

Where...carded empty building sites play daytime tunes to passing tin drunk..

Where...scooters litter apple canal space..

Where...walking dogs is compulsory..

is the place language comes to die.

Back Pocket

Here -

Where...frosted symphony bamboo foot bleeds into glass split concrete..

Where...silent fingers cup memory..

Where...bloodied alert eyes are street fierce..

Where...back pocket lamps guide bullied handshake greeting..

Where...muted trolley tight waiting is slow shuffled along wired footpath..

is the place language comes to die.

Lowland Feather - Short Story Extract

Image - Steve Coel

...out there on the scarab pathed moor where lonely birds pleat their song into ferned memory, old feet leisured by a lifetime of pain, shuffle slowly homewards...

...close by, as carefully baited lowland feather slaps its muted surface, ripple stone water stumbles into ice age grass bank...and through gaps in tree tired stone walls, wild horses fret and gather as rutted horizons shadow mountain valley...

 ...after too many years spent on The Mercy Path absorbing wire sharp whistled song, farewells will still be given through brick house window and muddied wall...

No Paths

Here, where young people never return and there are no paths; is the place language comes to die.

Text - Steve Coel

Photograph - Steve Coel

Curated by An 11.59 Publication

MicroFlashFiction - An 11.59 Publication

City Trilogy ( Part 1 )

Dead Air into Warm Harp

Since I bust my legs down The Works I've had to spend my mornings blowing dead air into warm harp by the Central Library. Truth be known, it bust my heart too. Lost everything now. Everything. Still... once I get enough coin in my pocket I go and get a Mild and Clark's pie down The Vulcan. And...often or not, I end up talking to the old girls warming themselves up before they go and shelter under the bridge by The Glastonbury.

Clink Hotel across the road gets noisy in the afternoon after lunch so I wander into town for a bit of a stretch and cadge a cup of tea from Astey's, before heading back down Bute to the Sally for warm meal and early bunk. Don't get time to feel sorry for myself really, not me. Trick I find is to forget past and just stick to what's happening now.

Need change of shoes mind...but I'll always find some in the box by the side door come Sunday morning.

Half Stolen Buildings

In her regulation daytime tracksuit armour, cracking with coarse whispers and yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier pass steamed up pub windows. Her world is the High Street where each day a bitter grey tide shambles downhill towards abandoned blue churches and disappearing city light. And it is here her plastic shoes will once again slap into one off needles that litter fishless gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is damp.

Smells of Time...

In you come in your sad seven year old ironic tracksuit and pair of box fresh looking for deals on the board behind the brown top counter which we know show the same best day price as last time, last week, last month. So in you come, doing quick sums and ordering a dozen shots with your release money which you quickly share out to punters who don't care anymore. In you come, barely missed and completely blitzed. A madman bent by routine, a madman twisted by addiction, a mad man caught in the to and fro of the outside which has turned its back...and good riddance.

In you come - a poorer man, smelling of time.

Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication